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Earlier today I was reading through Marty Moore’s update on Activities version 2. I’ve said before that the idea of Activities was a real eureka moment, and version 2 just builds upon that great work. But that’s not what this post is about (more on Connections 2 another time). Further down Marty’s IBM-internal blog was a rather neat widget showing his iTunes content for the world to see. “How cool is this?” I thought. Mind you, I need to have a word with Marty… he has some good stuff listed, but also… Dido?

Anyway, I fancied a bit of this iTunes widget action, so I did a bit of investigation. And it seems the My iTunes widget isn’t ideal for me. Basically what it does is reads your purchase history from iTunes and displays it in the widget. Sounds good but I rarely buy anything from iTunes. This may sound a bit pre-historic but I actually purchase CDs… and then import the music into iTunes. Very quaint and old school. Also, I very recently changed my iTunes account ID as the old one was based on a soon-to-be-dead e-mail address. So my purchase history, which was fairly small anyway, amounted to very little… just ‘We Are Scientists’ floating across the widget in a lonely fashion. This reminded me I had a few tracks in the shopping cart which I went on to purchase - but there’s obviously a lag as the latest purchases haven’t hit the widget yet.

I don’t really want to have a pop at Apple. I loved my trusty 4th generation iPod, I love the 5th generation iPod I was bequeathed when the wife got her iPod touch (generously provided by me for Christmas, and that’s a fine piece of kit too), and I sometimes look enviously at the offspring’s new iPod nano which for something so compact is an amazing item. Unlike Ports I like iTunes, and if I had a Mac I bet I’d love that as well. So what’s my beef?

Issue number 1 - the wife’s laptop has the most unreliable WiFi adapter I’ve ever encountered, and I have said several hundred times “if you don’t agree with the idea of spending a few hundred quid on a new one don’t keep moaning about that one”. The suggestion to buy the iPod touch software update, the one containing an e-mail client, was met with a little bit of scepticism - but in the end she agreed. She could pick up e-mail anywhere in the house. Great. The e-mail client supports POP3, so I thought it would be a doddle to set up. Hmmm…

The actual process should have been easy - type in the server names, user name and password, and press ‘Done’. However, I encountered more than a few error messages about it not supporting secure connections. After a while I worked out that if I ignored these and retried the setup I could get past the errors, and then in the final piece of the setup tell it not to require a secure connection, it actually worked. Fine, but I’ve been in the computer industry a good few years and I know about this type of stuff. For the average layman this process would have been baffling and probably wouldn’t have ended in success. Did Apple perform any usability testing?

Issue number 2 - unlike the wife, I don’t have a problem with the fact that I’m prompted to install a new version of iTunes almost every time I launch it. But I’ll tell you what I do have a problem with - I like a clean desktop, uncluttered by icons, so it really annoys me that after every iTunes update I have to clean up icons from the start menu, the desktop and the bottom launch bar. Yeah, okay, many other application installs don’t give you that option, but I really don’t need QuickTime shortcuts. If I use QuickTime, it’s always through clicking on a QuickTime movie file. Apple, please add an install option for not adding icons all over the place.

Okay, here’s a big helping of double-standards. We’ve discussed the BBC news site’s slightly Microsoft-centric skew on the world of technology, but I don’t mind Apple getting a bit of airtime. I was told that “the BBC don’t do product announcements”, so obviously their coverage of the latest Apple-fest in the court of King Steve is purely about interesting technology… it just so happens that Apple happened to have announced some new products during MacWorld. Imagine that.

Now, I have to admit that I haven’t, as yet, harboured any great desire to own a Mac. Wild Bill will probably hunt me down during the next week and subject me to several hours of reasoning. Or he might just stay in the bar, we’ll see. But I can’t help but admire Apple’s latest offering, the MacBook Air. It’s 0.76 inches thick at it’s thickest point. How do they do that? It weighs three pounds. Crikey. What they don’t tell you is that you need an aluminium case weighing ten pounds to carry it round in to make sure your wafer-thin Mac doesn’t snap in half (that’s not true, but you get the point). What is true is that to get to those vital statistics it doesn’t have a CD drive, but Apple have invented ‘Remote Disc’ (accessing CD drives over Wifi) to compensate.

Two further things occurred to me while watching the guided tour. Firstly, the lid is as flat as an After Eight mint… so how the hell did they fit a webcam in there? Amazing. Second, when John (that’s his name) demonstrates Remote Disc, look at the Windows-based computer he puts the CD in. Could they have picked a lumpier ugly-looking beast? Just look how that contrasts with the MacBook Air’s beauty. That’s Apple for you… nice products, great marketing.

This is something I’ve never done before… posted an entry and then changed it completely later the same day. The following is a re-thought entry about the same topic, but a bit more balanced.

I like to peruse the technology news page of the BBC’s news site as I find it one of the best ways to find out what Microsoft are up to and how it’s being positioned to the public. I do subscribe to a couple of Microsoft-centric newsfeeds, but the BBC’s news site is one of the most read on the planet, so it’s important to see what’s going on there.

We’ve had several heated conversations in the office about the fact that Microsoft seem to get a lot of coverage on BBC News… too much, way too much in my opinion. Around the time of the launch of Windows Vista it seemed that BBC News was like Microsoft’s own PR agency and news service rolled into one. To be fair, some other companies get a lot of focus… Apple for example, and I’ll admit to double-standards and say that I don’t have a problem with Apple getting a lot of airtime. IBM get very little coverage in comparison to Microsoft, and the Lotus brand get next to nothing (do a search on Microsoft and IBM and compare the results).

I took this conversation further on a couple of occasions. Shortly before the launch of Sametime 7.5 there were security restrictions and all kinds of problems at the airports in the UK, and I considered how relevant real-time collaboration was. Surely the market leader in real-time collaboration bringing out a new version and tackling some of the issues of business travel was news-worthy. Well, apparently not, yet at that time Internet Explorer 7 was getting a lot of coverage.

The drivers behind what the BBC decide to cover have been explained to me - basically what the BBC think their readership would be interested in and what has a broad appeal. Microsoft and Apple are news-worthy. I was told that “the BBC don’t do product announcements” but I blatantly disagreed with this. Have a read of this article and see if you think it’s tantamount to a product announcement. And to be fair, Apple get the same treatment. Think about that idea of what the BBC’s readership would be interested in… are they given the opportunity to be interested in other options when other software vendors aren’t granted an equal shout? Lotus Symphony, a free alternative to Microsoft Office, should be of interest to consumers and businesses - not just because it’s free but also because of the importance of the Open Document Format. However, there has been no coverage of Symphony.

The one that really had me ranting (I know, hard to believe) was a few years ago when the Beeb ran a story about Microsoft outlining the future of e-mail. They mentioned that Microsoft would introduce e-mail which couldn’t be forwarded or copied to another recipient. At the time of that article that capability had been in Lotus Notes for a few years already, yet Microsoft were getting the credit for a future vision. Microsoft the great visionaries? No, just a case of Microsoft getting the airtime.

So, with this in mind (and here’s the point of all this), they’re offering you the opportunity to post questions for Bill Gates, “one of the most important men in technology over the last three decades”. The man who invented oxygen, food, television and, of course, the internet.

The BBC deliberates your line of questioning… “Perhaps you have always wanted to know what the inspiration was behind Windows. Maybe you want to know what it is like being one of the world’s richest men. Or maybe you are more interested in the philanthropic career he has planned after he steps down.”

I know the answer to what was the inspiration behind Windows… it was the Apple Mac operating system. And as interesting as all those other questions sound, I’d just like to know about the roadmap for Microsoft Exchange (as it’s clearly too big a secret to share with the world). And actually I asked that one (can’t see it being selected), and just for fun I also asked “how many Zunes have you sold and when will you admit that Apple are just completely kicking your backside in that market?”.

The BBC have a charter which includes impartiality, so surely this means that Sam Palmisano will be next week’s guest question-answerer, followed by, oooh, perhaps Larry Ellison the week after. Maybe Steve Jobs (well, that wouldn’t surprise me). But probably not.

You’ll be pleased to know that the Archos 605 versus Apple iPod touch argument was resolved during the festive season. The wife very generously procured an Archos 605 plus DVR Station for me, while I furnished her with a tasty new iPod touch. This had the knock-on effect of a new-ish iPod for me, as she graciously passed on her iPod Video to me (to replace my faithful old 4th generation iPod). Lauren also got a new iPod (a blue nano), and this was welcomed by my older sibling Steve who is an Apple shareholder.

So, having played with the Archos 605 for a couple of days, was it the right decision? It’s a resounding ‘yes’. Now, the first thing you might say is “why have you got two devices Daz, an iPod and an Archos, when one iPod touch could have done the job?”. That was covered in an earlier blog post, but as a quick summary…

• The iPod touch’s top-of-the-range 16gb capacity isn’t enough for me (I have 9gb’s worth of music before I even start thinking about movies)
• I wouldn’t consider moving the music off the iTunes / iPod combination
• The Archos has a much better screen (larger and better resolution)

The first issue I came across with the Archos was getting DVD content onto the device, and after some experimentation and exchanges of opinion with Choddo, I went for DVD Ripper from Xilisoft (I already have another Xilisoft utility for getting movies onto iPods, but it wouldn’t work for the Archos - typical). Here lies one of the downsides of the Archos, that once you’ve bought the device you haven’t finished spending - I could actually have used iPod-ready movies but then I would have to have bought a plug-in to play them, so you have to spend either way.

Next, which format to rip to? Windows Media Video worked fine, but for some reason was very slow to rip… The Simpsons Movie would have taken (I estimated) about 10 hours. But I then discovered that the XviD AVI format worked on the device and was a lot quicker to rip.

The Archos 605 is WiFi-enabled so you can use it to browse the web… if you buy the Opera browser plugin (another £20). The case that comes in the box is rubbish (a flimsy pouch that offers about as much protection as a bus shelter in the event of a comet hitting the Earth) so chalk up another £20 for a decent case. So, there’s £60 gone on top of the cost of the device.

However, despite coughing up a few extra quid the overall experience is worth it. While the iPod touch wins for slimness and it’s user interface, the display on the Archos is beyond comparison (and you can also navigate using buttons if you want to avoid swiping your mucky digits all over the touch screen). The Opera browser is excellent (Opera are doing a good job, along with the browser on the Wii and OperaMini on the BlackBerry), there’s seven free ‘widgets’ available, the photos are crystal-clear, and the promise of being able to record from the Sky Plus box sounds great (despite my low expectation of anything to do with Sky).

Given the trouble promised at the UK airports in January (just in time for my trip to Lotusphere) I think the Archos 605 is going to be a godsend… perhaps I just need the battery extension pack.

Apple are quite smart really. I think they announced their new range of iPods just in time to capture the imagination of the Christmas market and ensure that they’re actually available (Nintendo take note). And yet again they’ve delivered something with the “I want one of those” factor. Actually, several devices with the “I want one of those” factor, addressing several market segments and budgets. Very few companies can do that. One the downside, they also served up a huge helping of device envy to their existing iPod owners (but as discussed here before, that’s part-and-parcel of investing in technology - life stinks, so hold your nose and get on with it).

An iPhone-lookalike iPod (the iPod touch) was expected, as was the re-vamped nano with added video. Less expected, from what I’d read, was the re-vamp of the more traditional iPod (now re-branded as the iPod classic). Nice new colours for the iPod shuffle, but I really couldn’t care less about that one.

Last week I debated whether to wait for the iPod announcements or get an Archos 605. In the end procrastination resulted in me waiting for the Apple announcements. And to be honest I’m still undecided. The iPod classic wouldn’t be of any benefit to me - personally I think the screen is too small for watching movies, so it would only be a music player, and my existing grey-screen 20 gb iPod is fine for that. So, the iPod touch with it’s 3.5 inch screen and integrated Wi-Fi is the most coveted. However, when you compare it to the Archos 605 the specifications are rather disappointing.

The iPod touch wins hands-down on look-and-feel, style, weight and ’slim-ness’, and it looks like there’s a few more bits in the box. The Archos 605 wins on screen size (4 inch) and resolution (800 x 480, compared to the touch’s 480 x 320). Battery life for video is roughly equal.

Where the iPod touch falls down is on it’s storage capacity - it will be available in 8 gb and 16 gb models. Not including the 4 gb flash drive model, the Archos 605 starts at 30 gb and goes up to 160 gb. The small capacity, and the fact that storage is on a flash drive, gives the iPod touch that slim advantage. But let’s put this into perspective - currently I have around 9 gb of music on my current iPod, so that’s more than half of the 16 gb capacity gone. An average DVD ripped into the right format will be around 1 gb - ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ (a bum-numbing 2 hours 34 minutes) weighs in at 1.5 gb. ‘Team America’ (1 hour 33 minutes) is 928 mb. Therefore after the music goes on, the 16 gb iPod Touch would have room for 7 DVDs if I’m lucky. Not exactly a broad choice when you’re considering what takes your fancy when sitting in Manchester airport. On the other hand, the 40 gb Archos 605 should comfortably hold 30 DVDs.

Of course, despite all this thought process, I’m no nearer a decision. But if I hang on another year…

There are many things you can be sure of in this life. Death is one, but if you want to discuss something less morbid let’s talk about technology - the fact that if you purchase any item, as sure as night follows day, at some point in the not-to-distant future you will be disgruntled when the new / improved model is launched.

As it happens, I discussed this on the old dadams.co.uk web site when my iPod (the classic white model with the grey LCD screen) was superseded. That didn’t really bother me since it’s primary (indeed, only) function as far I was concerned is playing music. And it didn’t need a colour screen to do that.

However, in general, there’s probably no good time to buy technology. Buy too early and you’re likely to be the guinea pig who suffers the early teething problems. Buy too late and a severe case of device-envy could hit you even before you get home from the shop (or in this world of e-commerce, before the courier company finds your house).

So what’s with the Archos or iPod title? Well, I’ve been considering buying a portable movie player for a while. I have a few trips coming up, including one to South Africa - lots of time sitting around airports or on airplanes. And loads of DVDs and recorded t.v. programs that I’ve never watched (and probably never will). I’ve been pondering an Archos 604 for a while, but that’s now been superseded by the Archos 605. Seems to do all I require, plus it boasts built-in WiFi and can make use of the same software we purchased to enable the wife’s collection of chick-flick DVDs to be viewed on her iPod.

I was seconds away from hitting the purchase button when I entered into a conversation with Lakeland Steve (Florida resident and Apple share-holder). He informed me that the 5th of September was the day to watch out for the new product announcements from Apple, and the smart money is on a new large-screen touch-screen iPod (built along the lines of the iPhone). Let’s face it, Apple are pretty good at marketing and doing things at the right time, so they’d be mad not to update their product line before Christmas. However, this scuppered my Archos purchase - whether temporarily or permanently I don’t know. Of course, if I wait for the new iPod, it won’t be available in time for the South Africa trip.

So readers, what do you think? Archos now or iPod later?

You gotta love Apple. Macs are cool, iPods are cool, iTunes is cool (despite it’s ‘proprietary’ nature), the Mac OS is stylish and innovative… and Apple provide cyber-cafe services for loafing foreign students. Okay, it’s actually the Apple Store, but it’s always full of loafing foreign students checking their e-mail. So if you wanted to actually look at a Mac notebook before buying one, you’d have to shove a loafing foreign student out of the way.

Mark this day, for it heralds the announcement of Apple’s Safari web browser being made available for Microsoft Windows. Which leads us to the important question…

Why?

Apple are good at what they’re good at - making stylish technology that people want. Success comes in various shapes and degrees for Apple. Take the Mac in it’s various guises… it’s market share compared to Windows is small, but it is growing (both in the home and enterprise markets). Apple are in a good place with the Mac. Some people who use Windows at work are choosing Macs for home. They’re stylish but also very usable and functional (I mean the Apple Macs, not the people… although some may be).

Take the iPod. Millions have. Compared to the iPod, Microsoft’s Zune has been an abject failure. Let me paraphrase a section of an entry I made on my internal blog in December last year. At the point where Central Park meets New York’s 5th Avenue, Apple have opened a new store. It’s about the size of the ground floor of the London store, but they’ve made better use of the space. Let’s just say the place was packed with people, the iPods were flying off the shelves, and the volume of third-party offerings to go with the iPods has never been more evident to me. As if to emphasise that fact, our hotel room boasted a clock-radio with an integrated iPod dock.

And then there’s the Zune, Microsoft’s iPod killer…

I saw two stores selling the Zune. One was the Virgin store at Times Square. Again, this store was packed to the rafters with shoppers, but the Zune wasn’t gathering much attention. In fact if it hadn’t been for me having a fiddle with the pseudo-click-wheel, the Zune display would have been a very lonely place. I also read somewhere that in the run-up to Christmas 2006 Apple sold ten times more spare chargers for iPods than Microsoft sold Zunes. So, we’ll allow Apple to chalk the points up on that front.

iPhone? The jury has to be out until they ship it. Granted it looks very nice, and for some people that will be a good enough reason to stand in a queue.

Anyway, I digress, back to Safari for Windows. Many Mac users tell me that Firefox for the Mac is a better browser than Safari, so why do Apple think that Safari for Windows is a great idea? I look at Safari for Windows and it lacks the toolbar I use every minute in Firefox. They’ve tried to make it look like a Mac application, but it runs on Windows… so why is making it look like a Mac application a good idea? That’s just going to confuse people. Perhaps Apple are thinking “all those people who use Macs at home, they have to use Windows at work so let’s give them a familiar browser”. Nice idea, but the problem is that the companies employing these people don’t want another browser on the desktop.

The Apple web site lists “12 reasons you’ll love Safari”. #1 is “Blazing Performance” - yes, actually it does perform well, but when pages load in under two seconds it’s hard to tell whether it is actually 1.6 times faster than Firefox. It feels like it’s fast, so I’m fine with that claim. Just about all of the other reasons are things I already have in Firefox (apart from the rather nifty “Resizable Text Fields”).

I’m sure Apple have other motives. It’s surely not a coincidence that the iPhone hits the shops soon and uses - guess what - Safari as it’s native browser. More Safari users equals more reasons for developers to do their thing.

As much as I’d love to see Apple trounce Microsoft, I think that Firefox has a far better chance of doing that in the browser stakes. Apple, stick to what you do best - Macs, iPods, cool stuff… don’t try to fight Microsoft in their own back yard.